This document summarizes key points from an Italian legislative commission studying a proposed "Bill of Rights for the Internet". It discusses how human rights must adapt to the digital sphere, with concepts like net neutrality, platform interoperability, and digital impact assessments. Specific rights addressed include the right to one's online identity, rights and safeguards for people using platforms, and criteria for internet governance that respects its open and democratic nature. The document advocates designing "civic media" to help people connect not just with those they like, but also those needed to work together on issues.

1. Digital Humanities - Bocconi 2016 - Luca De Biase
Rights
“The Internet has played a
decisive role in redefining public
and private space, structuring
relationships between people and
between people and institutions.”.
Declaration of Internet Rights

2. How human rights are adapted
to the info-sphere?

3. –Lawrence Lessig, Code, 2006
http://codev2.cc/download+remix/Lessig-Codev2.pdf
“Code is law”.

4. ❖ “A future of control in large part exercised by technologies of
commerce, backed by the rule of law (or at least what’s left of
the rule of law).
❖ The challenge for our generation is to reconcile these two
forces. How do we protect liberty when the architectures of
control are managed as much by the government as by the
private sector? How do we assure privacy when the ether
perpetually spies? How do we guarantee free thought when
the push is to propertize every idea? How do we guarantee
self-determination when the architectures of control are
perpetually determined elsewhere?”
❖ - Lawrence Lessig, Code, 2006

5. Writing code is making law

6. Writing code is making law
❖ We regulate daily life on the basis of incentives and
rules that are written in the code of which platforms are
made
❖ It can be that the future will be even more so, while
technologies will work more and more smoothly into
our daily life
❖ A discussion about rules is a democratic discussion

7. Writing code is making law
❖ There is a “human rights dimension” for inspiration and
imagination
❖ There is a “constitutional dimension” to rule the rulers
❖ There is a “legislative and administrative dimension” for
normal laws
❖ There is a private participation to ruling, that happens by
writing code that is adopted and becomes part of daily life
❖ There is a commons dimension that needs social innovation

8. Digital media and human rights
❖ At the Italian Chamber of deputies a Commission has been established
to study and propose a Bill of rights for the Internet. The question that
was asked to members is clear: does the internet change the
environment in which human rights work and can be diminished? The
Commission’s works have generated a Bill. What does it say? And how
can it be implemented?
❖ http://www.camera.it/leg17/1179
❖ http://www.camera.it/application/xmanager/projects/leg17/
attachments/upload_file/upload_files/000/000/189/
dichiarazione_dei_diritti_internet_inglese.pdf

9. Human rights and the internet
❖ net neutrality
❖ platform interoperability
❖ digital impact assessment

10. ❖ 3. NET NEUTRALITY
❖ Any person has the right that the data he/she transmits and
receives over the Internet be not subject to discrimination,
restrictions or interference based upon the sender, recipient, type or
content of the data, the device used, applications or, in general, the
legitimate choices of individuals.
❖ The neutrality of the network, whether it be mobile or fixed, and the
right to Internet access are necessary conditions for ensuring the
effectiveness of the fundamental rights of the person. They preserve
the “generative” function of the Internet and the production of
innovation. They ensure that messages and their applications can
travel online without suffering discrimination on the basis of their
content and their functions.

11. ❖ 8. RIGHT TO ONE’S IDENTITY
❖ Any person has a right to the complete and up-to-date representation of their
identity on the Internet.
❖ The definition of identity regards the free construction of the personality and
cannot take place without the intervention and the knowledge of the data subject.
❖ The use of algorithms and probabilistic techniques shall be disclosed to the data
subject who, in any case, has the right to oppose the construction and
dissemination of profiles regarding him or her.
❖ Any person has the right to provide only the information which is strictly
necessary for complying with legal obligations, for the supply of goods and
services or for accessing Internet platforms.
❖ The definition of an identity on the Internet by a state entity must be governed by
appropriate guarantees.

12. ❖ 11. RIGHTS AND SAFEGUARDS OF PEOPLE ON PLATFORMS
❖ Digital platform operators are required to behave honestly and fairly in dealing
with users, suppliers and competitors.
❖ Any person has the right to receive clear and simple information on how the
platform operates, not to have contractual terms arbitrarily altered and not to be
subjected to conduct that could make accessing the platform difficult or
discriminatory. Any person shall be in any case notified of changes in contractual
terms. In this case, they have the right to terminate the relationship, to receive a
copy of the data concerning them in interoperable form and to have the data
concerning them removed from the platform.
❖ Platforms that operate on the Internet, if they represent services essential to the
lives and activities of people, shall facilitate conditions – in accordance with the
principle of competition and under equal contractual terms – for the appropriate
interoperability of their main technologies, functions and data with other
platforms.

13. ❖ 14. CRITERIA FOR INTERNET GOVERNANCE
❖ Any person has the right to have their rights recognised on the Internet both at national
and at international level.
❖ The Internet requires rules consistent with its universal, supranational scope, aimed at
fully implementing the principles and rights set out above, to safeguard its open and
democratic nature, to prevent all forms of discrimination and to prevent the rules
governing its use from being determined by those who hold the greatest economic
power.
❖ The construction of a system of rules shall take account of the various territorial levels
(supranational, national, regional), the opportunities created by a variety of forms of
self-regulation consistent with the above principles, the need to preserve the capacity
for innovation, the multiplicity of actors operating on the Internet, and shall encourage
involvement in ways that ensure the widespread participation of all concerned. Public
institutions shall adopt the appropriate instruments to ensure such participation.
❖ In any case, the regulatory innovations regarding the Internet shall be subject to an
assessment of their impact on the digital ecosystem.

14. Can we make this work by design?

15. Civic media
❖ Social media help people meet other people they like
❖ People need to meet also people they don’t necessarily
like, when they have something to do together
❖ “Civic media” need to be designed in order to meet that
need
❖ Luca De Biase, Media civici, Apogeo Feltrinelli, 2013